I’d like to know, on a scale of 1 to 10, what’s your adversity quotient?

You may not even know what "adversity quotient" is, but humor me...I’m about to tell you.

There are different types of challenges that we experience in life.

1) Those that come at us and we HAVE to endure, and

2) Those we CHOOSE to tackle.

For those that come at us, we don’t have a choice. We simply get through these challenges for the most part. Time... and sometimes family or friends or self-help books...assist us as we inch through these challenges.

These are situations like illnesses, accidents, tough circumstances that are out of our control.

But your Adversity Quotient stems

not from the lemons that life throws at you

Your Adversity Quotient stems from those life challenges that you choose to tackle.

^{Photo by yns plt on Unsplash} 

Choose Adversity On Purpose?

That second group of challenges includes things that we put ourselves through on purpose in order to grow and learn and become stronger and more resilient.

That means choosing to take on a challenge to get results you want.

If you’re hunkering down and enduring circumstances in your life, I invite you to take a serious look at whether you’re truly being strong and overcoming adversity, or if you’re hiding from the tough things you need to do to make your situation better.

I’m asking you this because there was a point in my own life where I was just enduring.

I thought I was being strong staying in a tough relationship.

But it was simply accepting abuse. I was in adversity, but I wasn’t raising my adversity quotient.

I was hiding from the adversity of taking the tough action I needed to make a better life.

Until I turned it around....but that's a story for another day.

^{Photo by yns plt on Unsplash}  

Here’s another example...I spent the 5 months working every night after work, every single day on the weekends literally from sun up to sun down on a summit. I knew that this would cause my business to skyrocket.

(In reality, it was truly an amazing event. The speakers said so, the participants said so.)

But for all that hard work, I barely broke even.

5 months of hard work.

Afterwards, I spent two weeks in an I'm-worthless-in-business funk. I wanted to hibernate.

I actually considered quitting completely. It just didn’t seem worth it.

I wasn’t raising my adversity quotient.

I was hiding from the adversity of taking the tough action I needed to make a better life and a better business.

Raise Your Adversity Quotient

Here’s the thing...whether in business or in life...victorious people know that they have to teach themselves what is possible.

...That you have to take action and fail.

...That you can’t put success and happiness in a causation relationship. You should work towards both in a conscious way.

…That often hard work comes before success…by years.

...That you will fail.

Victorious People Know

Victorious people know that failure is the price of success.

We have to get better at doing hard things.

I want to be a person who’s good at doing hard things. Not known for doing hard things...but good at them.

Why?

Doing hard things is the only way to accomplish impossible goals and living an amazing life.

And because hard things have the prize at the bottom of the box.

Now, just because you do hard things doesn’t mean you can condemn people who you don’t see on the outside doing hard things.

Everyone is on their own journey.

Choosing to raise your adversity quotient is a personal challenge. Instead, invite people to understand and explore their own adversity quotient.

I invite you to raise your adversity quotient

I’m inviting you to understand and explore your own adversity quotient.

What difficult, but necessary, step do you need to take to overcome a challenging situation you’re in?

I’d like to take the poll again, so go ahead and vote in the comments below.

Now that you know what adversity quotient is...

^{Photo by Gilly on Unsplash}  

How would you rate your adversity quotient moving forward?

My wish for you is that you don’t abdicate your personal power to someone else or to society.

Take back control over your own life by boosting your adversity quotient and choosing to do hard things for yourself.

When you do, it will be the most powerful vitamin you can ever consume.

YOU have the power to take action to change your life.

One thing I know to be true, adversity is one of the ingredients to a more resilient and joy-filled life.

A life that you deserve.

I challenge you to explore your adversity quotient.